Two arrested for alleged impersonation during UTME – Official

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said two persons have been arrested for alleged impersonation during an examination in Kano State.

The Board made this known in a statement by its spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, on Tuesday.

Mr Benjamin said it was discovered that a registered candidate had paid someone to source for an examination-taker to sit the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for him.

He said the impersonation was discovered when all the candidate’s details including his identity card carried the passport of the hired examination-taker.

“What appears to be yet another vindication of the Board’s position regarding the mandatory use of pictures taken during UTME/DE candidates’ registration to forestall impersonation came to light with the arrest of the duo of Mr Buhari Abubakar Ismail and Mr. Ajeru who were arrested in Kano.

“Mr Abubakar, a candidate, had paid Ajeru to source for an examination-taker to sit the UTME for him, on the basis of which he secured admission into Bayero University, Kano (BUK),” he said.

“Mr Abubakar had sought ways he could change the passport of the examination-taker to his own but was unsuccessful in the course of which he was arrested. Mr Abdullahi Sarki, also arrested, had promised to change the passport of the examination taker to that of Mr Abubakar, which he couldn’t.”

The official said upon interrogation, Mr Abubakar confessed to paying Mr Ajeru N25,000 “to get someone to register and take the examination on his behalf”.

“Mr Abubakar had confessed during interrogation that he paid Mr Ajeru the sum of N25, 000 to get a ‘mercenary’ to register and take the examination for him,” Mr Benjamin said.

“Checks by the Board revealed that the said registration was done at SMS ICT Institute of Training Ltd, Kano. The centre had since been blacklisted by the Board to serve as deterrent to others.”

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Mr Benjamin explained that the apprehension was made possible “because BUK had complied fully with the ministerial directive that only data supplied by candidates during registration should be used by institutions during the fresher’s registration”.

He said “were it not for the implementation of the ministerial directive, the candidate would have brought in a fresh passport and got himself properly registered into the university without anybody’s knowledge”.

“This is just one out of the many arrests that the Board had made in recent times with respect to candidates who hired ‘mercenaries’ to sit the examination only to discover that they cannot change the images and biometric attached to their details,” he said.